Tax break for flood damaged properties

Luzerne County Commissioner Maryanne Petrilla's office sent me this:


Luzerne County advises any property owner affected by the September 8, 2011 flooding that they have the right to file an Appeal with The Board of Assessment Appeals within the remainder of the County fiscal year in which the catastrophic loss occurred or within 6 months of the date when the catastrophic loss occurred, whichever period is longer.

A Catastrophic loss is a loss of 50% or more of the market value of the property. Appeal fees for flood victims will be waived.

You may obtain appeal forms from the following sources:

On the internet at Luzernecounty.org under “Departments and Agencies”.
At the Assessment office located in the basement of the Courthouse.
By calling The Assessment Office at (570) 825-1858 to request the form be sent to you.

The wording is a little clunky and the PR didn't provide a hot link to the required form but I think I found it here:
http://www.luzernecounty.org/content/Document/Appeal_Forms.pdf

Michelle should be proud of me if I got it right.

Congressman Lou Barletta took to the floor of the House of Representatives yesterday to tell his colleagues about the devastating flooding that hit Northeastern Pennsylvania and push his bill to lower the interest rate for disaster relief loans to 1%.


But can anyone honestly say that providing disaster recovery loans for American homeowners and American businesses should be a moneymaking operation?

The transcript of his remarks are not available online yet but you can see the speech on his YouTube Channel.

My memory may be a bit faulty ( help me out Yonk) but if I remember right everybody who was affected by the 1972 Agnes flood got $3000 without having to pay it back then had to pay 1% for anything over that. Dan Flood did that.